I have been musing about what the toughest mitzvah is to do.
This morning’s research points to the last of the 10 commandments, Lo Tachmod
(Tit’aveh). It means “don’t covet” and some reading in the classical
commentaries makes it seem pretty reasonable. Don’t look at what someone else
has and even think of ways of getting it from that person, legally or not. Sure,
there are different levels of understanding about what it means to scheme to
get something, pressure someone into giving it up, or make plans to buy it, but
the bottom line is that you need to focus not on what someone else has and how
you can get it but on your own life.
How tough could that be?
So I spent the morning dreaming about winning the lottery.
It is a side hobby of mine (not even my main hobby!) to think about what I
would do if I hit a HUGE lottery. Whom would I tell, how would I act, what
would I do. All that stuff. And, according to what I was reading about that
last (and according to some, most important) of the 10 commandments, just day
dreaming isn’t so horrible. I’m not making any plans to take someone else’s
winning ticket. Heck, I’m not even making any plans to go out and buy a ticket!
Laziness, one, ambition, zero.
But there is another idea within Judaism that stays with me.
In the Ethics of the Fathers there is a statement, eizeh hu ashir, hasame’ach b’chelko.
Who is rich? One who is happy with his share. There is a lot to say about that
phrase, but I want to focus on a couple of things. First and foremost, this
saying is easily echoed by “money doesn’t buy happiness.” But so what? I also
think of Moonlight Graham’s statement about his career path – he says, when Ray
Kinsella says that being a big league ball player for a short time was a
tragedy, “if I'd only gotten to be a doctor for five
minutes... now that would have been a tragedy.” Doc understood what
it means to be rich – respecting what really matters. Nice sentiment, but how
does that relate to my happiness?
Then I think about all the horror stories I read about
lottery winners. They get swindled. They lose friends. They go broke. They kill
themselves. Apparently, they haven’t found the happiness that they thought
money would buy. Being (monetarily) rich, it seems, is not what happiness is!
There is actually another commandment from the Torah – v’samachta
b’chagecha, you shall be happy with/on/in your holidays. On one level that
accords perfectly with the statement from the Ethics – our “lot” as a people is
our commandments, including our holidays. We shouldn’t want to celebrate anyone
else’s holidays, but should find happiness in ours! But this doesn’t make me
not want to win the lottery. Then I thought about it: how can we be commanded
to be happy? Much has been written about what happiness is and isn’t and about
the various times we are told as a people and as individuals that we should be
happy. Weird commandments, they. Am I supposed to feel happiness in my holiday
because holidays are what make me rich? How do these things fit together?
I think that the hardest commandment is to be rich.
OK, maybe that jumps a step or two because the hardest thing
in fact, is to be happy, mostly because we are all so confused about what that
means, how we get there and how we know we are happy. We associate happiness
with material possessions, so we think of richness as happiness. But the last
commandment is pointing out that if we spend our time plotting about how to get
riches, then we are pursuing the exact opposite of happiness. And, trust me, it
isn’t easy being happy with what you have. But that’s the challenge; that’s the
commandment.
Don’t look at what others have – count your own blessings.
Don’t be simply satisfied with what you have, but find a way to feel actual joy
in who you are and what you have. Don't daydream about the lottery, not because it violates the 10th commandment, but because it destroys any possibility of happiness. That is tough, I know. But if you can
recognize, appreciate and enjoy what you have at every moment, then you will
feel a true and sublime richness.
I want that kind of happiness and I want those riches and I
struggle every day to get there.
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edit -- another thought popped into my head. On Sabbath mornings, we say in our Amidah service "yismach Moshe b'mat'nat chelko" that Moses was happy with the lot that he was given. Connect that to the Ethics of Our Fathers and we see the standard: we are to be happy to emulate Moses, and he was happy even though he didn't get to enter the land of Israel. He never won that lottery and yet he was still happy!
